The Committee have volunteered to stay as they are for another year as Covid interrupted their tenure. But Covid did mean a lot of work for our Chairman, Gail, in keeping in touch with everyone, making sure we were all ok and filling out those risk assessments. For this we decided to award Gail the 'Gwent Quilters Award' for going above and beyond her duty. Elaine reported that finances were doing ok and membership would stay at £30, and Carol reported that we had lost some members but gained some new ones. Louise outlined our programme for the coming year which includes a workshop with Joy Salvage and a talk from Nicholas Ball plus our postponed exhibition in June, so exciting things coming our way. We have also decided to start a 'block of the month' sewalong so new (and old) members can learn techniques whilst making up a lovely sampler quilt (see Gail's example in July blog).
We had 11 entries for our challenge, a 3 layered quilted item on the topic of 'The Natural World'. As ever a variety of items, sizes and techniques.
Ruth won the overall vote while Sue was second and Gail third. It was lovely to be able to award prizes to 2 new members of the group.
Several of us had enjoyed a workshop with Anne Hellyer the previous day, making her 'Set the town alight' night light and we were pleased to welcome her as our speaker for the afternoon. She told us of her journey in textiles and some of the methods she uses to paint her fabric and add features to her work. Take a look at her website, she does some beautiful work. Painting the Town – Art by Anne Hellyer